Built by Love: One Man’s Story of Fostering Hope

PETER’S STORY

Peter came from a physically and verbally abusive home in Uganda. His father would lash out at him every day. At ten years old, Peter ran away from home and lived on the streets of Kampala where he met other street kids who helped him survive. While living on the streets at age fifteen, he met a man named James who showed him kindness. Eighteen months later, James helped to send Peter to a Christian boarding school that gave him a place to sleep and three meals a day. Peter worked hard at school and went on to Makerere University in Africa, Oak Hill College in England, and even received his master’s from the University of California. After school Peter began working at an international child advocacy ministry whose Ugandan operation James led. His work as an international child advocate has helped over ten thousand children get sponsored through his work. 

FOSTER DAD

From the trauma of his childhood and his extensive travel for work, Peter never thought he would become a dad. Deep down he also feared becoming a father, “For most of my adult life, I was so afraid that I might be like my father that I did not even dare dream about becoming a dad.” However, after talking to other foster dads, Peter decided to take a leap of faith and become a foster dad after living in the U.S. for fifteen years.

He left his job, traded his Infiniti for a van and moved to Oklahoma City to buy an affordable house. He called the foster care family network and said, “I’m a single man from Africa who has never been married and never had children.” They assured him with a few classes he could still be a foster parent. Five months after becoming a licensed foster parent, Peter had his first placement who stayed with him for six months. More foster children followed including an eleven-year-old child who had been abandoned at the hospital. When Peter learned of his story, he told the social worker that he would adopt the boy. A year and a half later, the adoption was complete. “Anthony was now officially my son, and I was simply a father, without the word foster in front of it.” 

He continues to help other vulnerable children realize, “They are loved, they are chosen, they are heard, and they are known.” Since 2016, he has been a foster dad to over forty children and has adopted three: Anthony, Ryder, and Skyler.

PARENTING LESSONS LEARNED

To prepare for parenthood, Peter read books and received hours of training. He had also lived the life of a child in foster care. He says, “I knew what it meant to live in survival mode where you cannot let your guard down to trust anyone. I knew what it was like to suffer abuse and to blame yourself for it rather than your parent. I knew how it felt to be rejected by the one who is supposed to love you, and how every good deed from a stranger always came with strings attached.” All your preconceived ideas of how to raise a child shatter the moment you become a parent. No matter how prepared you believe you are there will always be obstacles that lie ahead. Peter offers the following advice to help as you face the challenges in parenthood: 

• You won’t always like your kid – It is okay to be honest with yourself and acknowledge the emotions you feel. Once Peter signed up one of his foster sons for driver’s ed. Intead of being happy, his son was angry and showered Peter with unkind words. Later on, Peter learned that his son got angry because he could not believe anyone would do something nice for him. “Every day, even on the hard days, I choose to love my children whether they reciprocate or not,” shares Peter.

• Celebrate the small wins – Peter’s first placement was a boy named Kaine. An hour after Peter dropped him off at school he got a call. Kaine was upset and acted out by flipping a table over. Over the next week Peter would get similar calls nearly every day. He was so frustrated and began to question whether he made the right decision to be a foster dad. Then a miracle happened, Peter started getting calls only three times a week instead of every day. Instead of focusing on his expectations for his children, Peter began to celebrate each small, daily win. He told Kaine how proud he was of him for his improved behavior. This way Kaine began to experience the feeling of success which increased his confidence and motivated him to strive for more. 

• Parenting will expose your scars – Even though Peter left the streets at fifteen, he still carries the scars of that time with him. For example, he does not take food for granted because growing up food was scarce for his family. It was worse when he lived on the streets where he had to survive on salvage or even steal a piece of fruit to sustain himself. As a parent, Peter became annoyed when his children would try to throw away most of their meals after only eating a few bites. At first, he would try to make them feel guilty, but over time he has learned to let it go. “We cannot take our anger out on our children over what someone else did in the past,” shares Peter.

• Discover root causes –A six-year-old child named George came to live with Peter. He suffered from PTSD because he had previously been sexually abused. Therefore, he was afraid Peter would be his next abuser. To make sure the abuse didn’t happen again George had a strategy. He would smear fecal matter on the walls of the bathroom and himself to keep any abusers away. Instead of being angry at him, Peter assured him he was safe and would not hurt him. He says, “Looking for the root causes for behavior is also the key to understanding how to discipline a child.”

• Parent a child for who they are, not who you want them to be – Education was important for Peter. He saw it as a tool to open doors for the future. Some of his foster kids loved school, but most struggled. It is important to remember that parents should not put unnecessary pressure on kids to conform to expectations they are not made to meet. Parenting becomes less frustrating when we let kids grow and develop into the people God has made them to be.
 

For more information on Peter Mutabazi click the LINK!  

CREDITS

Author, Love Does Not Conquer All; (Baker Books, 2025); Entrepreneur; International advocate for children; Founder of Now I Am Known, a corporation that supplies resources that encourage and affirm children; Worked for World Vision, Compassion International, and the Red Cross; Speaker; Appeared on The Today Show and BBC; Former street kid; Speaks 7 languages; U.S. citizen (2019) Adoptive dad of three, foster dad to over 40 kids